action

The Pirate Bay tends to be a website that national governments aren’t particularly fond of. That being the case, it’d be surprising if a national government ran ads on the site, advertising an Economic Action Plan, right? Canada did that, but not on purpose.

Banner ads for Canada’s Department of Finance’s Economic Action Plan started showing up on the site a few days ago, right next to ads for finding a Chinese bride, as shown by an image from the Ottawa Citizen. The ads were removed quickly, and the Department of Finance is blaming ad networks that were included in their media buy, specifically Yahoo!.

Yahoo! is in turn pointing a finger at Sympatico:

We have confirmed that Yahoo! was not responsible for the EAP ad showing up on The Pirate Bay. We have been able to trace the ad to Sympatico who were responsible for this ad’s appearance on the site, and they have been notified of the issue so they can take the appropriate actions.

Regardless of whose fault it actually was, the fact remains that for a while, the Pirate Bay had the pleasure of running a few government-purchased ads, and is enjoying the irony. According to TorrentFreak they’re even considering covering the site with unsolicited ads for the plan, for kicks. Though only the first run paid in real money, a second one would probably pay pretty well in smirks. [TorrentFreak via CNET]

Ever been tempted to rent a movie again, but thought the price was just a little too dear? Google may soon be willing to haggle a deal. One of its newly-granted patents could automatically lower the price of repurchase-friendly content, such as a Google Play Movies rental, depending on how likely you are to pull the trigger. Its algorithm weighs your personal tastes and repurchasing habits against those of your peers: if the code senses you’ll be relatively stingy, you’ll get a better discount. The analysis could even factor in the nature of the content itself. A thoughtful movie, ownership of the soundtrack or just a lot of related searches could lead to a repurchase at the usual price, while a simple action flick with no previous interest may bring the discount into effect. We don’t know if Google will offer these extra-personal discounts to the public at any point in the future, but if you suddenly notice a lot of follow-up bargains in Google Play, you’ll know how they came to be.

Ever been tempted to rent a movie again, but thought the price was just a little too dear? Google may soon be willing to haggle a deal. One of its newly-granted patents could automatically lower the price of repurchase-friendly content, such as a Google Play Movies rental, depending on how likely you are to pull the trigger. Its algorithm weighs your personal tastes and repurchasing habits against those of your peers: if the code senses you’ll be relatively stingy, you’ll get a better discount. The analysis could even factor in the nature of the content itself. A thoughtful movie, ownership of the soundtrack or just a lot of related searches could lead to a repurchase at the usual price, while a simple action flick with no previous interest may bring the discount into effect. We don’t know if Google will offer these extra-personal discounts to the public at any point in the future, but if you suddenly notice a lot of follow-up bargains in Google Play, you’ll know how they came to be.

Mobile search users are much more ready to take action — implies further down the funnel. Contrast this to actions users take after clicking on mobile display ad — "maps and directions" (appears they are still researching).

Facebook has created an option within its OpenGraph source code for social commerce that, in addition to allowing users to create a “Want” button, allows users to indicate that they bought something in the same way that they can “like” video or news articles, according to blogger Tom Waddington.

Poking around in Facebook’s OpenGraph code, he found options for a “product.purchased” option along with the aforementioned “Want” button. Waddington says:

The source code from the stream story gives a few more clues as to Facebook’s strategy for products. The Want/Unwant action link even includes ‘socialcommerce’

It’s clear that Facebook are working on a new OpenGraph representation of products.

It appears that product wants and purchases will be accessible similar to other user actions – music, news and video.

Here’s a screengrab of what it might look like:

As we explained earlier, a “Want” button coupled with some sort of social commerce action would be sort of Holy Grail for advertisers who currently do not have a way of figuring our users’ shopping desires on Facebook.

LONDON (AP) — Drug maker Novartis says it is taking legal action in Britain to make hospitals use an eye drug that costs 700 pounds ($1,130) per shot instead of a cheaper one that costs 60 pounds ($97).

According to the U.K.’s health watchdog, Lucentis is the only drug recommended to treat the eye problem, macular degeneration.

However, the much cheaper Avastin, a cancer drug, is widely prescribed for macular degeneration, though it is not officially approved. Last year, four hospitals in southern England decided they would pay for Avastin when it was prescribed by a doctor.

Both drugs are made by Novartis.

In a statement Tuesday, Novartis said it was demanding a judicial review to make the hospitals use Lucentis rather than Avastin.

Patient groups called for an independent appraisal to determine which drug should be used.

By now, we’ve become accustomed to the circus of elite advertising that takes place during America’s biggest game, and this year was no exception. Last night’s Super Bowl made room for over 50 commercials during its air time, some of which included the likes of Samsung’s whopping Galaxy Note, the usual Go Daddy domain teasers, a bit of Best Buy “innovation” and the Hulu Plus Mushy Mush campaign, just to mention a few. Needless to say, we put together a small collection of some we believe you might enjoy, so take a virtual jump past the break to catch the big-ticket advertising in action. You can also find the rest of the ad pack at the source link below.

Over the years, stories have become more than just single bursts of information. These days, there’s as much drama in the consumer technology world as there is sports, politics or your average episode of Days of our Lives. Take SOPA, for example. We’d be remiss of our duties here if we simply reported on what it was, without ever following up on protests, delays, judgments and other vitally important developments. In fact, it’s tough to think of too many stories covered today that don’t correspond with some sort of saga — even the departure of RIM’s co-CEOs represents just a single slice of a far larger tale. For those that follow this stuff 24/7, jumping in at any point in the story is no issue; piecing together the past with the present is second nature. But if you’re actually working during the day, hopping aimlessly into an ongoing saga mid-stream can be downright disorienting. Painful, even. We’ve been working hard to come up with an unobtrusive solution, and we think we’ve found it.

We’ve actually had our Follow The Saga functionality since January of last year — we quietly debuted it with the launch of Verizon’s iPhone 4 — but today’s iteration is far more interactive. We’ve been testing these out over the past few weeks, and today we’re happy to officially introduce them. If you see the badge shown after the break in any post that pops up here at Engadget, just give it a click to be taken to the full saga, and scroll up and down to see related stories before and after the one you happen to ! be looki ng at. We’re hoping it’ll be particularly helpful to those who happen to stumble upon a saga somewhere in the middle, but want to get caught up on what happened prior and where we stand now. As with everything we do, we’ll be continually tweaking and evolving the tool in the months ahead. Enjoy!

Psst… want to see it in action? Have a look under the body of this SOPA post to see how we got to where we are today.

It wasn’t just RIM that had designs on the limelight during the football action last night. Comcast commercials appeared over the NFC Championship game last night, thoughtfully playing over the climax of the match ‘twixt the Giants and the 49ers. Frustrated fans who missed out on parts of the fourth quarter and overtime promptly began voicing dissent on the company’s support forums. The Washington Post has a quote from spokesperson Amiee Metrick indicating the problems were due to a possible “equipment failure” at a local Fox affiliate, WTTG, resulting in the ill-timed ads reported in Washington D.C. We’ve heard that of customers receiving a $10 credit and an apology, but it seems unlikely to soothe the brow of those — like the person who recorded video of the incident you can see after the break — thinking of switching to FiOS.

Update: We’ve received a response from Comcast (included after the break), and updated the post to clarify the apparent breakdown was at local Fox affiliate WTTG.

Digital Consigliere

Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.